Frank Wootten

Frank Wootten, who in a half- century career at the Oakland Tribune brought rare, sunny grace and fiery enthusiasm to the often wearing craft of journalism, has died in Walnut Creek at age 86.

Inspiring mentor, fierce competitor, quiet gentleman -- Mr. Wootten was all these to the many reporters who worked alongside or against him until his reluctant retirement 11 years ago.

"Any reporter in the country should be so lucky as we were at the Tribune to have worked at Frank Wootten's knee," said the newspaper's longtime crime reporter, Harry Harris. "Just watching this guy work and seeing his love for journalism and his love for the East Bay . . . there was no way you wouldn't want to be like him."

Mr. Wootten was born in Berkeley and started as a cub reporter at the Tribune in 1930, quickly showing a flair for all kinds of stories from train robberies to community flaps. Except for brief stints as a Navy officer in World War II and publisher of a small newspaper in Atwater near Merced in the 1960s, he spent his entire career at the paper, logging 54 years on the payroll.

When he retired in 1987, he was still scoring scoops and banging out several stories a day with a relish that left those around him shaking their heads.

"Frank comes to work with the energy and spirit you would expect of a guy his first day on the job," Steve Lopez, who worked with him at the Tribune in the 1970s and '80s and now writes at Time magazine, said when Mr. Wootten retired. "And he does this literally every damned morning."

Mr. Wootten's wife of 49 years, Virginia, said he never lost that fire: He was dispensing advice to Lopez, ex-Congressman Bill Baker, and many others he inspired until weeks before his death of pneumonia in a rest home Wednesday.

Upon stopping work at age 76, Mr. Wootten chuckled and told a reporter he was leaving mainly because "if I stayed on, it would keep some younger fellow from getting hired, so maybe it's time for me to have a different kind of fun."

So that's what he did -- traveling throughout the world and hitting the bay waves in his 29-foot sailboat until health grounded him about a year ago. "He liked to sail fast. . . . He liked the wind on his face," Mrs. Wootten said.

While state editor in the 1950s, Mr. Wootten directed coverage of the burgeoning East Bay before going on to become assistant managing editor. In contrast to the hard-drinking, fist-pounding newsroom fashion of the day, Mr. Wootten was a quiet, smiling rock of authority, colleagues recall.

He always kept a passion for slinging a reporter's notebook, though, and in 1974 he took over the Contra Costa County beat at age 63.

"Everybody thought, 'He'll work a year or two and then retire,' " said retired Tribune Managing Editor Roy Grimm, whom Mr. Wootten hired in 1956. "But he was a ball of fire."

In 13 years of covering the county's politics and breaking news, Mr. Wootten forged such a reputation as an accurate scoop- maker that even those he wrote critical articles about fed him hot tips.

"He always treated everyone fairly and honestly, and you knew you would never get stabbed in the back even when the news he wrote wasn't pleasant," said state Senator Richard Rainey, R-Walnut Creek, who was sheriff during Mr. Wootten's tenure. "He was a great reporter and a great person."

Fair though he was, Mr. Wootten was not beyond a few impish tricks to bag an exclusive: He once persuaded a government official to put off issuing news releases until after a competitor's deadline.

"The more the pressure came, the more he liked it," said retired Tribune political editor Gayle Montgomery. "He was a consummate pro, plus he was a nice guy."